NewsFlash, December 2011

Mechanical engineer Mark Ganter sees the future, and it's printing apple pies. And maybe vital organs, furniture and buildings. Today, more and more companies are selling 3-D printers within the price range of consumers.

Foldit was voted innovation of the year by readers of TechFlash as part of the TechFlash Newsmaker Awards. The protein-folding game was developed by computer scientists Zoran Popovic and Seth Cooper, as well as UW biochemists.

GeekWire editors include computer scientist Yoky Matsuoka in their list of people who made the biggest impact on the technology community and did the coolest stuff within their respective fields over the past year.

The radio station of the U.K. Royal National Institute of Blind People interviews undergraduate student Sanjana Prasain about her research providing transit information to blind, low-vision, and deaf-blind users.

You've seen it in Hollywood and in video games -- electronics that enhance what we see through our own eyes. Now, electrical engineering PhD student Andy Lingley says the team is much closer to a bionic contact lens.

Twenty-one teams picked for the National Science Foundation’s new Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program met at Stanford last week. Among them was Carbon Cultures, a group of UW chemical and material engineers working to turn timber waste into fertilizer.

Xconomy asked experts what one thing they would like to patent. Engineering Dean Matt O'Donnell said: "If I could patent a sure-fire control technology enabling precise delivery of drugs and biologics through living organisms such as bacteria, I would quit my day job."

Xconomy asked experts "What's the craziest idea out there that just might succeed?" Computer scientist Ed Lazowska responds that over the next decade, technology can actually play a significant positive role in education.

The American Society of Engineering Education's Prism magazine, in its "Up close: Innovators at work and in the classroom" series, describes MacArthur award-winner Shwetak Patel's innovations in research and education.

The FDA said it will consider setting a standard for how much arsenic should be permitted in apple juice after Consumer Reports found high levels in apple juice samples. Electrical engineer Denise Wilson, who published a study that prompted the test, is quoted.

A team from the University of Washington has built an application — Spunby.me — that lets you grab music from one machine, stream it to another, and play it in sync on both. The team crowds around two monitors as The Police plays on one computer and arrives on the second — almost in sync.

Perhaps the biggest consumer weapon arrived this year in the form of Decide.com, launched by UW computer scientist Oren Etzioni and a group of UW alumni. The Web site and mobile app collect and mine billions of transactions to determine what the best price is and whether there will be an even better price soon.

An inspirational example is the Foldit game — developed by the computer scientist Zoran Popovic at the University of Washington — that recently attracted thousands of volunteers to uncover the structure of an enzyme important to H.I.V. research.

By day, electrical engineer Maya Gupta, currently on sabbatical at Google, tries to solve the puzzle of teaching computers to recognize the contents of digital images. Outside the lab, Gupta prefers puzzles of the analog variety.

GeekWire picks Hélène Martin, a UW alum who is now a lecturer in computer science and engineering, for its 2012 "Geeks Who Give Back" calendar. Alum Kevin Ross, founder of Washington FIRST Robotics, is also honored.

If you have a newsworthy result about one month from publication, presentation or demonstration, through the end of 2011 please contact Hannah Hickey. Notice of student and faculty awards and grants is also welcome.